


Make Whole What Has Been Smashed

by gigantic



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Canon, Alternate Reality, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-17
Updated: 2011-01-17
Packaged: 2017-10-14 20:47:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/153303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gigantic/pseuds/gigantic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Don't look at me that way, John. Blank stares are already a dreadful reminder of how hopeless other people are," Sherlock said.</p><p>"Since most people aren't maintaining a home with Merlin living backwards, I think I'm doing alright at going with it so far," John said.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Make Whole What Has Been Smashed

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to Sobota for beta work and encouragement! The title comes from a section in Benjamin Walter's “Theses on the Philosophy of History” about a Klee painting, 'Angelus Novus.'

Sherlock realized he'd missed something within the first few minutes. It was impossible not to, of course, under the circumstances. He found himself with his eyes open, lying flat and unsure about the world, about his surroundings. He was without words about any of it, to be completely honest. Those came later. At the start, he'd simply opened his eyes and blinked and hadn't any words, but then someone was standing over him and said, "Sherlock? Sherlock, you're up early. Is everything all right?"

Sherlock hadn't any recollection of this person, hadn't any knowledge of the words he spoke, or that they were called words, or that he was in fact a he. Sherlock fixed his mouth to mimic the sounds, curious and confused, and since the person kept speaking to him, it seemed to be the thing to do, opening his mouth and closing it and producing invisible shapes that tickled his eardrums.

"Are you feeling okay?" the man asked.

Sherlock didn't know. He couldn't know okay nor alright or if he should be concerned about feeling either, because he couldn't have imagined how those felt or that feeling was sometimes a thing of emotion and not a physicality or that these two things might differ. He simply saw a man. He saw the opening and closing of his mouth, the lift of his eyebrows and something like anticipation. There were long pauses, and Sherlock did not understand these either, but he felt he should mimic them. There seemed to be space enough between the words to try, and he was unsure that he could produce the sounds, but it was worth it to make an attempt. The shapes weren't the same from his own throat. His version of sound had been darker, more thready.

He said -- he couldn't be sure of what he said in the moment, but later he would remember it as the least eloquent he'd ever been or could be, pursing his mouth and saying, "--hoo?"

The eyebrows of the man over him dropped, came close together, and Sherlock couldn't have named this look, but it felt altogether different. There was still some space left, too long a pause that he hadn't managed to fill up, and perhaps this was the problem.

"Oh," the man over him said. "You've forgotten again."

;;

That had been day one. The very beginning of the first day, Sherlock Holmes had known nothing. By the middle he knew a few things, and by the late afternoon he knew a few more, like an overstuffed closet in his mind, and every so often, the door couldn't bear any more and some contents would have to spill out.

He knew some of these things by intuition, a familiar pull at touching a lamp or a plate or a mug. Those items he knew because John told him. John told Sherlock a lot of things, starting with, "Here's your tea, then, with sugar, no milk. Your cup's already clean. Might as well start easier if it's going to be one of these days."

John handed over the cup, and in that moment Sherlock learned several things. He learned that mornings started with tea, that he had a cup, that he liked sugar more than he liked milk, and that the man who'd offered it to him was in fact someone who gives things and that he knew Sherlock cared about personal hygiene -- to name a few. It took some more time to sort it all out. The lessons didn't come to him in linear, coherent thoughts at once, but he sipped his tea with some prompting from John. John reminded Sherlock to curl his fingers and tip the cup just so. Sherlock tasted tea, and it felt right, the drinking of it. It felt right that he should get this from John, whose eyebrows pinched over and over, who looked like he might benefit from lying down the way that Sherlock had begun his day.

Sherlock quite enjoyed the lessons he got from John. His name was about the seventy-fifth lesson, after a visitor came and inquired about Sherlock. This visitor said, "Hello, John," upon his arrival and then, "How is he today? All backwards?" and looked at Sherlock and asked the question again. "How are you feeling?"

Sherlock knew the answer from his first ever conversation, from the beginning of the day. He pinched his eyebrows the way John had and copied the shapes of his mouth. He said, "Oh. Forgotten again."

The visitor had looked shocked or impressed or confounded. The three did overlap too frequently, Sherlock would find out. He'd said, "Is that right?" and looked back at John, exchanging more words, all of them curved and worn at the edges -- a whisper.

"Afternoon, John," the man said eventually. He vanished soon after that, and John saw to his exit.

When he returned, Sherlock said, "John," just as easily. He liked that shape, the way it came out all in one push and then was done. Simple, complete. "John."

The eyebrows lifted again, and John titled his head. John's face was made up of the tiniest expressions, tells and cues and complete thoughts in one glance, and Sherlock thought he might mimic and learn those too. But at the start, the expressions were all just halting, and there were the spaces that Sherlock thought he might try to fill, but before he could repeat his word, John touched his hand to his chest and said, "Yeah," nodding. "Still just me. Not going anywhere."

So the seventy-fifth lesson Sherlock learned was that John was what to call this man made of expressions, that he was John and still just John, as if there were times someone might have thought him someone else. He was only John, and he was not going anywhere, though he had gone to the door at that point, so he might go somewhere at times, not very far, and come back. That seemed okay. He wasn't going to any place that he deemed significant enough to call different, and Sherlock hadn't had a full understanding of space and lengths and distances, but he learned as he went that he rather preferred when John was more near than far; that it was not to his taste when he could describe John as being far because nearer meant more lessons, meant all of John's looking and leaving space enough for Sherlock.

And Sherlock did enjoy those spaces, too, filling them up with things to evaluate what would make John furrow his eyebrows or let them sit apart. He learned more than three hundred lessons the first day alone, until John seemed too worn out of teaching to even hold his face together, expressions all soppy, and Sherlock thought that maybe he could teach John to lie. That didn't seem to be a thing John did much of, and Sherlock knew that one at least, could remember what it was like even if he couldn't explain all the cues. Sherlock urged for John to have tea, and John got up to make it, which was fine, because Sherlock didn't think he'd perfected the technique yet, but then after it was made and consumed, Sherlock insisted John lie down. He guided his limbs so that they would bend and straighten correctly.

John said, "Patience, patience," but he did lie, the two of them together.

It was fine like this, after the showing and the learning. Sherlock's mind felt full. He tipped his head to the right and lifted it, waited for something to come out, but the fullness stayed. He tried again.

John said, "It's all right, Sherlock. We can rest."

He touched Sherlock's shoulder and had him lay back. Sherlock said, "John," touching their arms together.

John's hand came over Sherlock's wrist, humming. He asked, "How are the thoughts today? How many words?"

"Many," Sherlock said. He couldn't categorize them all or understand them completely, had picked up quite a few, but there was still so much.

Nodding, John said, "Right, well. That's good. Don't you think we should arrange them?"

He had that lifted look again, and Sherlock simply tried to copy it. He gave John an answering look until John felt satisfied with the duration of that particular pause and said, "Okay, three true things today. Let's have it out." He patted Sherlock's chest when Sherlock didn't fill the space this time. "Speak."

It took some cuing, but Sherlock said words and John said more, helped Sherlock piece together sentences and thoughts. It was long a time before something dragged Sherlock under, heavy and soft like the words of their visitor, a whisper against his brain. He felt full and sorted, all John's doing, so Sherlock gave himself over to the weight, and before he was unconscious, John pressed his mouth to Sherlock's shoulder, and that was lesson five hundred and three.

;;

The second day Sherlock knew more than the first, and so on for the third and fourth. John became harder to parse, though. He said Sherlock sometimes didn't make enough sense, had got caught up again in talking about things that hadn't happened. It was confusing, the way John couldn't remember the visitor they had when Sherlock asked his name.

Sherlock described the man quite clearly, and John said, "Sherlock, that hasn't happened," but Lestrade had come around several days before, maybe two weeks, if Sherlock meant him.

Sherlock thought, no, but it's been only a portion of that. He could track it by a calendar, a fascinating way to keep a day.

There was the curiousness of John's method for tracking the calendar, filling it up with colorful crosses, and then Sherlock would wake up and one would be gone. It seemed a little silly to him, and he said it to John in one of the early days. He said, "Wouldn't it be simpler to draw through days after they happen and not before, John? Don't you agree?"

He'd gotten better control of speaking. It was thanks to John for the most part, helping to rearrange the words and sentences Sherlock kept, and they made so much more sense when put right, as if he really had known it and forgotten. He did that a lot, according to John, forgot things or got them mixed up.

Sherlock figured out the problems with the days and the way John and visitors always seemed to know things differently than him about the same time John told him. He had a suspicion on a Sunday, tried it out, and then on a Tuesday asked John if he remembered the film they watched, described the setting perfectly, from the key scenes to how John kissed Sherlock's knuckles in the middle of it, during an exchange between two children.

John asked, "Are you sure, Sherlock? Are you sure that's happened?"

The phrasing tipped him off as well. The way John always said something "hasn't happened" in present tense was another clue among a whole list of others. Sherlock liked keeping the lists, took the facts that he and John talked through and wrote them down, even, but he was always losing the lists and occasionally finding ones John must have done of his own thinking. John's present tense phrasing had been on the one Sherlock had started Sunday and lost, and he would have to add it to a new sheet so as not to forget, though he never forgot the things that were important, so it was no serious matter in the end.

It was John who always told Sherlock that he forgot things, but Sherlock knew clear as anything what had happened on the sofa, watching telly. He said, "Yes, I'm sure. It happened yesterday, John. Are _you_ alright?"

"Do you mean yesterday or tomorrow?" John asked. He balled up his fingers and stretched them out again. "Because yesterday we sorted this, and today you've -- you've forgotten again, Sherlock."

"I remember it clearly."

"You're living backwards. It's all reversed," John said, finally. "I can tell you what's happened if you --"

"Why would you tell me what I know perfectly well?" Sherlock interjected, cutting through John's nonsense. "Be sensible, John. It's not me that's disoriented."

Though it was what he suspected. The calendars and lessons, the memories. It all made more sense to think of it plainly, that John and Sherlock were living in different directions. They couldn't remember the same things, but they could piece the parts together. If only John could see.

"I can go through the timeline," John said. "Catch you up."

"Don't bother," Sherlock said.

He went to their bedroom and wrapped his dressing gown around himself tightly. John was full of useful knowledge, perhaps it made sense that he could get so turned around about the days, doing things in illogical ways. If one person lived one way and another man another, it was possible they'd get tangled and mixed up.

John offered to tell Sherlock his version of things again, and Sherlock dismissed him. He said, "I have to organize the words. I'll do it alone."

So John didn't help him with his thoughts, and Sherlock spent most of the next day in the room still, trying to figure out the issue. John seemed shocked that Sherlock was still thinking, asked what had got him in a strop, and Sherlock only came out for tea and to notice another X mark on the calendar gone.

"If you'd only mark them as the days went by," Sherlock said.

"On what?" John asked, and then looked back. "Sherlock, I do. You know this, remember."

"Why are you insisting I've forgotten?" Sherlock asked. "It's a tedious argument to have twice, John."

"More than that," John said. He was wrong of course. It had been two times.

They argued again, about the direction of time, until Sherlock said, "If I'm not heading in the right direction, then what I have missed?"

It was a challenge, a frustrated outburst. John said, "It would -- it would be easier with the papers. Yesterday I told you about a car crash I witnessed two blocks over. Do you remember?"

"Hardly," Sherlock said. He wouldn't forget something like that. They spent most of their time shut up in the house or downstairs for food, and he wouldn't have forgotten something like a collision, even if John had completely forgotten about the protest happening on the other side of town, had gotten so wound up when Sherlock mentioned he'd caught something on the news, by accident, because Sherlock knew John disliked the news and more still when Sherlock mentioned seeing it.

But now John huffed and turned on the set. He switched right to a news program, and let it play. Sherlock said, "This isn't necessary."

He didn't want to agitate John for fun. They had some things to resolve, and Sherlock had learned quite a lot from books and movies about fantastic histories people dreamed up, of places and things, and John had said, "Oh, a lot of it is real but a lot of it is make believe," but now he said, "This is all fact. You'll see."

And so it was. Or so it mostly was, because even the news got things wrong Sherlock would come to learn, but that day he watched and got drawn in, and they talked about yesterday the way John did. They talked about things that hadn't happened, and it was impossible to believe, a whole nation of people living so completely wrong, but if all of them thought one way and Sherlock another, then -- well, that would require some more thinking.

"John," he said airily, absorbed in the stories and updates, so sure of what sounded like make believe and yet fit in with books he read, all varying degrees of fiction, according to John.

Fiction was easier, John had said on the eighth day, and Sherlock didn't mind easy, since tea was filed under the same header, and maybe that was why Sherlock could never find his lists. Maybe they were all his lists, old and new. He moved away from the TV and searched until he found one he hadn’t penned. The writing looked familiar, but Sherlock had copied his own handwriting after John's on the first days, and so he thought the unfamiliar lists were John's, but now -- now he held up a piece of paper and said, "Did you write this?"

John said, "No, I don't touch the lists. You keep them in a certain order, in a certain place. It's easier for you to catch up, Sherlock. Do you remember?"

No. No, Sherlock did not, but it made an eerie sort of sense, that today he and John had a row, and two days ago, when Sherlock asked John if he'd tell him some true things and help arrange the words, John had seemed surprised and asked, "Not the whole story?"

"Just the true things. I will ask and you sort it, like always," Sherlock had said, because that was their routine, wasn't it? It had been since day one, from the beginning, except in the day between, Sherlock had told John not to bother with any stories and apparently hadn't ever asked John for the whole story again in any day that followed, not even at the end of the first day when John had kissed Sherlock's shoulder as Sherlock fell asleep.

Sherlock knitted his brow together the way John did many times and asked, "What do you know about November 18?"

It was the first day, and Sherlock woke up on day two and November 18 had been unsurprisingly blank, like November 19 and 20 and the days before those, because they'd already happened. There was no clutter there, as all the words for those days were sorted and wiped clean. John liked to clear the days away, so he marked calendars backwards and left the past tidy, except today John said, "Nothing, you know that. It's the future, Sherlock."

"November 19?"

"The same," John said, exhaling. "And you don't tell me, of course, that's always been the deal."

"Right," Sherlock said, and it was just as well, because it occurred to Sherlock that he didn't know of November 19 either.

;;

On day three, John had said, "I wish you could know it again. I wish you could remember that it's different for us."

From early on, Sherlock had known that he and John were different, but it took Sherlock a while to make sense of too many words and loose ends, and how he could intuit things, and why still some things didn't fit together. He knew they were different, that John wouldn't go anywhere, because he was just John, and therefore things were different for them, because John liked to mark his days backwards. Sherlock knew things and always remembered, contrary to John's frustration, but it eventually came to light that they were different because Sherlock was even more divergent on his own, because Sherlock's tomorrows were John's yesterdays.

It became more evident once Sherlock gave the notion a real chance. For instance, there was never any newspaper in the house, and then one morning there was a small stack. Sherlock asked, "Where'd these come from?"

"Mm, I forgot to throw them out," John said, and then did so, which was alright, because there were a lot of words in the one Sherlock had started to investigate, too many to rearrange all at once if they were all fact, like the news on television.

The next day the papers reappeared, and this time Sherlock said, "I thought you took these out?" remembering too late.

John said, "Oh, I will. Slipped my mind this morning," but of course he didn't, because Sherlock knew that yesterday -- tomorrow -- Sherlock would remind John.

It happened that way, Sherlock trying to read things and being overwhelmed, so John would minimize the news, or increase it steadily, as Sherlock was able to accept more of it, want the new words. He wanted the facts of yesterday, to close in on the source of a problem and see how a political race ended up one way or a disaster another.

Several long weeks after the beginning -- or before, for John -- Sherlock read a story about a dead woman. He read out the headline and first paragraph to John, the way he did sometimes, so that John could help him arrange the city correctly in his mind, and John had said, "That was so tragic," with a deep regret.

The next day, he asked John to take him the library across the street from where reports had mentioned the woman died, and they checked out books for Sherlock. It was overwhelming to be amongst the bustle, people everywhere, living and altering the course of things. He and John didn't see the woman die, but they saw the emergency vehicles after, and it made all the more sense when they asked the details of the unfortunate accident. John's regret was clearer to Sherlock then, and Sherlock didn't like the look on him, more upset than he'd ever been, even when Sherlock got wound up and had a sulk.

During the ride home, Sherlock couldn't stop thinking of it. He said, "If only I had paid closer attention."

The woman could have possibly lived. John wouldn't have to frown tomorrow and take on an expression that creased his features.

"We can't always," John had said, resolute but low. He sighed. "Sometimes you have to choose the good days."

He was relieved the next day when the woman was alive and John was unconcerned. It was strange but better, and he kept looking at John's face for some recognition, but there was none. Eventually John said, "Well, what is it?"

"Yesterday -- tomorrow, I saw something," and John held up his hand.

He said, "Whatever it is, don't tell me. I want to have a quiet day."

A very interesting reaction, Sherlock decided, because Sherlock’s tomorrow could be quiet. They had many quiet days, but then Sherlock thought of John's closed off expression, a resignation that was even more silent. It was Sherlock's doing, then, to a point. Had John not known of his own tomorrow, then he certainly wouldn't have had to feel guilt about today, and that was the state of Sherlock's life, it seemed. Maybe that was why John eventually thought to keep less news around. Forward and backwards all at once.

Sherlock told John to leave the papers and the news as time went on. Although there was no shortage of unfortunate things that had already happened, it meant there were also stories about people always coming back to life, getting a new day, even if it was an old one, even if they would make the same decisions and lead them to Sherlock's past, ticking off the days with small, colorful crosses until they hadn't an opportunity to do it anymore.

That could be a decent way to think of it. Set backwards, people were always dying. Set forwards, people were always living, and that could fit on the list John must have had Sherlock start at some point a long time before, closer to the beginning that Sherlock hadn't reached yet. He could tell by the way the paper browned, hidden inside the bathroom mirror and boasting 'silver linings' at the top, underlined twice.

;;

"This is boring," Sherlock said. He'd sat at home for so many days, branching out as much as John let him, but he'd read through the news and kept better lists, annotated and carefully dated. He started some experiments or woke up to find them mostly complete, really, and would set about unraveling a mystery until its most basic point, and that was fascinating until it wasn't quite fascinating enough.

John said, "Everything always is."

That was another thing John was wrong about. Sherlock had been content until today, mesmerized by a universe in which he started in the middle and had to catch up. There was a world out there, with people coming back from oblivion all the time, each of them mysteries unraveled, and Sherlock had enough of reading about it more than seeing himself, first hand, out in the action.

He knew so much from studying -- his name was Sherlock Holmes, and he had had a brother, and he had John, and he once had a website where he logged all of his lists in a different way, focused on individual people, unwinding crimes and events, and John logged their lives on the internet, but those were both gone. He knew the day he was born and the date he would most likely die, his beginning and end all in one, and John knew the first of those dates but Sherlock would never tell him the second, because John might get that expression, the regretful one, and Sherlock didn't think it sensible of John to frown about a day where he had taught Sherlock so much.

Sherlock memorized and remembered more than other people, because he had to. Studying made things easier, and John liked easier, since it got extremely difficult for him towards the end, with Lestrade coming through to check on them once in very long whiles. Sherlock could recognize that the further he got away from it, how trying it must be to live with a man who seemed to forget everything each day, more and more still, because he hadn't yet learned them in his own timeline, a man who opened his mouth one morning and couldn't even form full words without more practice and effort.

So Sherlock memorized for John's sake, and they were getting younger every day, and he was much more articulate now. But he knew of texts and not enough of real experience, and he said, "Well, take me out. John, I'm _bored_."

"It's not wise, Sherlock," John said.

Sherlock didn't give up, because John sounded like he didn't really want to tell Sherlock no, like if Sherlock picked at him more, was careful about his coaxing, he might be able to see something interesting again.

He'd gotten so preoccupied with reading John backwards that the day snuck up on him, and he hadn't paid enough attention to it when a story on the news made him shudder, the details of it gruesome and enthralling and too much at once. He could separate out some of what happened, how it could have been prevented, and Sherlock said that aloud, sternly said, "It could've been solved."

He was at least half sure of it.

John was at his side, and that had been what was distracting, how John said, "Most of them are," then touched Sherlock's neck. John always left space in sentences for Sherlock, and he insinuated himself where Sherlock didn't even realize he needed John, and that was all fine, but John had not kissed him quite like he did then, on the mouth with his brow furrowed, and it felt sad. It felt regretful, all wrong, and Sherlock pulled back and eyed John warily.

"Sherlock --"

"Stop that," Sherlock said. "I don't want it."

John looked surprised, and then offended, and then overtired, and that. That was what Sherlock didn't want, when he'd been trying so hard to keep facts straight for John. He hadn't even done anything to deserve the look today.

John was too calm about how he said, "Sherlock," that false calm for an agitated madman.

"What?" Sherlock asked. "Why would you do that then? Like that? I don't deserve it."

John argued the point a bit, but he let it go before too long, getting up and leaving the room. Sherlock turned off the TV and stared at the ceiling, perplexed by John Watson's actions. There were billions of people on the planet, and none of them were as much a puzzle as John, who stayed with Sherlock and felt compelled to kiss him when he was sad about perfectly true statements Sherlock made about the news.

He spent the rest of the night thinking about John, everything about him that he could remember living and hearing John say about their lives, and John still came to bed with Sherlock that night, solid and warm. He was absolutely confounding, but as long as he ended up here no matter what, Sherlock thought that would ultimately do.

The odd evening made more sense the next day when Sherlock got a call from Lestrade, saying they'd found another body. Sherlock had been right, which meant time was running out.

It turned out to be the case from the news reports. Sherlock did his best to conjure more of the details, tracing them frontwards and then fixing them backwards in his mind again. He tried to recall precisely when the last body had been found and when the murderer committed suicide by police fire, but he'd mixed up the times and the sequence, and two more people died, and Sherlock knew with immediate certainty that this moment was inevitable, but it still felt utterly unsatisfactory.

The worst part of the whole ordeal was that the shocked looks of authority figures were coupled with conciliatory rubbish about next time. Next time Sherlock would be in top shape again. They were worse than the ones who said that this was truly it, then, a Sherlock Holmes turned human and fallible, and Sherlock scoffed and walked away from them, remembering John when he touched Sherlock's arm and caught up.

"They're bitter about missing the details in time," John said.

"They were right," Sherlock said, because it was true. "I saw it. I should have known."

John nodded. He said, "It doesn't always help. This isn't the first time, Sherlock. We'll --"

"Don't bother," Sherlock said.

He knew that if he was direct with John, then John would listen. He'd learned that from experience at least, and he didn't want to be placated by anyone, least of all the man who knew how it should go, that if Sherlock spent so much time studying, had seen the headlines only yesterday, tomorrow, then he should be able to do something about it.

John reached out to touch him back in their flat, and Sherlock wouldn't have it. He didn't deserve to suffer failure and John's sorrow, and he knew John would try again tomorrow, while they relived it, and then he'd not try that again, ever, and Sherlock was going to be better for it, none-the-wiser, because he didn't want pity from John.

Sherlock figured out his mistakes in the following days, living backwards through the case. He couldn't change the fate of these people, all resurrected and doomed, but he could do better for the next one. He would know what to keep watch for in criminals and how they thought.

It seemed so simple when he made it to the start of the crime, feeling too anxious the morning of because he knew Lestrade would call, and John said, "You won't be bored forever."

"Of course not," Sherlock said, still tapping his foot restlessly, if only the text would come.

He worked through the start of the crime quickly, examining the scene and finding every clue he knew he would. He told John about it, painted the clues out for Lestrade and John, and everyone, and Lestrade said, "Then we can have this one solved with no problem?"

"It's always solved," John said testily before Sherlock could say something different. Sherlock didn't mind it, he thought, because Lestrade would not have liked the entire truth.

;;

Crimes were so interesting. Much like the home experiments, Sherlock could peel them back, fact by fact and trace their origins, and sometimes Lestrade would get to question suspects, ask, "Why does your best mate want to kill you?" and Sherlock could find out if they knew the answer already the way Sherlock did. The most fun ones did, but there were some that didn't, and very few could predict how they would be put down, by knife or poison or bullet or chainsaw (which had been an especially nasty one).

Sherlock had missed points on his second case, but less than the first. The third went better still, and he realized that there were merely too many facts. He couldn't keep all the words and thoughts for the mundane at the front of his brain if he was meant to keep all the true things about crime scenes past and future. There was too much to remember.

He'd keep the essentials. He'd keep the experiments and motives, common threads in various crime scenes. He'd keep how he liked his tea and most everything related to John, naturally.

"I'm clearing out the clutter," was how Sherlock explained it to John. "There's too much. Some of this data must go."

"Reformatting the hard drive?" John offered.

"What?" Sherlock said, pressing the tips of his fingers together. "Oh, yes." That was a genius way of describing the process. "Deleting everything extraneous to keep the important parts. You'll forgive me unlearning to hoover."

"I have for this long," John said.

Very interesting, Sherlock thought, considered it, and then filed that away for keeping too. John was a forgiving man, evidence number eight hundred and twelve.

John said, "Be careful what you're deleting. Can we password protect the bit about how to pay bills on time? I'm tired of teaching it."

"Hm," Sherlock said. Passwords. John Watson was absolutely bursting with exceptional ideas. "Of course. You must say the password though, I think. For it to stick."

"I know the routine."

Right, right. Sherlock said, "Alright, say it."

" _Lieder_ ," John said, the word sparkling in Sherlock's mind. He felt that tingling in his brain that he'd come to know as the intuition. It was so much more pronounced all of a sudden, now that he knew what this word meant to him, like an unlocking in his brain, and there John Watson was, all the bytes of him, compressed and filed with the attention of a lifetime.

"Excellent," Sherlock said, closing his eyes.

John looked up from his book. He said, "What is? Have you protected it?"

"Without a doubt," Sherlock said. "I keep everything of you, John."

John closed his book at that. He shifted in his chair, narrowing his eyes at Sherlock. He said, "No, you don't."

"Why wouldn't I?"

"You forget things all the time," John said, a bit incredulously. "I've been here to witness it, you know."

John had it twisted again. Sherlock said, "I remember everything."

"It's difficult to keep backwards and forwards all at once. You've said this to me; I've lived it."

Sherlock lived it as well, in his own way. He could say for certain that he memorized every moment of being with John, a doctor who only had one patient. Sherlock was John's life's work so far, and would always be in a sense. He knew very well how to help a backwards man through a forward world. Sherlock could feel so much of them laid out, John staying John and teaching Sherlock, and it was endlessly interesting to observe the documents on it.

He said, "I've lived it too. I assure you, you're there."

"I can't tell with the way you still don't make tea," John said, sarcasm palpable. "That was about lesson number one."

"Not so true," Sherlock said, since he could never forget lesson one. The first day he knew in great detail. "You make it righter that I can."

John snorted, and then the sound bubbled down to a laugh, and yes. Sherlock had that one on file, like everything else. John said, "You only store the facts, the important parts."

"You're all fact," Sherlock said. Even more than the news. Sherlock was with John all the time, and so he could verify his entire existence as true and important, since John taught Sherlock everything he knew or would come to know.

"Amazing," John said.

Sherlock opened his eyes. "What was that?"

"You're amazing," John said again, as if it was inconsequential.

"Really?" It was Sherlock who regarded John suspiciously for that.

"You're always amazing, Sherlock, even now," John said with confidence, and that turned out to be on file, too, how astounding, but Sherlock hadn't heard that out loud before. He knew John liked him enough not to go away, but amazing? He hadn't thought to ascribe it to himself from John, not when he hadn't proven anything yet and only filled John's life with hard education.

Sherlock remembered himself and closed his eyes again, dropping his head back. He collected his thoughts and put John Watson away, making sure the files were properly guarded. He said, "Hm. John, aren't you worried about this password? It's predictable. You must know that."

"It's worked this far in," John said. He had amusement in his voice still.

Sherlock said, "My most played classic piece. Anyone could guess."

"So you've said time and again," John said. "But you picked the word, not me. I've only kept it because you said."

And that did sound familiar, now that John mentioned it. Sherlock said, "That's unlike me. Its sentimentality makes it easy to deduce."

"It was the first piece you played for me that wasn't droning or terrifying," John said.

"Sentimental and thought about romantically --"

"It's a fact."

"Ah," Sherlock said. He didn't know this memory intimately, but it sounded right, and John said fact, so it must have been. And facts were different, weren't they? Facts were imperative for survival. The password would have to stay.

;;

The first time Sherlock solved a crime, truly prevented a criminal, was because he'd studied the history and taken to perusing past newspapers and internet articles with a close, routine eye. He and John were on the scene, and they sustained some bruising, Sherlock a very serious concussion, but John had taken him home at the end of the night, after the medics fussed over him, and he kissed Sherlock on the mouth again.

He'd tried a few times in between, and Sherlock had done his best to evade him, but this time John was more exhilarated than worried or sad. Sherlock could see it in him, knew somewhere deep in his senses, and so this kiss was far better. It felt like a reward. Sherlock didn't need trophies so long as he could solve the mysteries, as long as there was proof that he was getting sharper, mind working faster than ever, but John had his easy smile on, and he pressed it against Sherlock's mouth, and Sherlock liked the taste of it, so this reward was different.

They stayed up for hours, at John's insistence.

"I'm fine," Sherlock said. "I know it for certain."

"But I don't," John said. "You have a concussion. We're staying up."

He didn't need to worry, because Sherlock could remember all the days before this one where the concussion hadn't been a problem. John kissed him again, and he said that it didn't matter, he still wanted to stay awake. It was just as well, because yesterday Sherlock had woken up around one in the afternoon, which made sense if he and John had gotten to sleep very late.

"There are several hours between now and the morning," Sherlock said.

John said, "Would you want me to talk you through a story?"

"One from before me," Sherlock said.

John made a face that signaled his distaste. He wasn’t keen on talking about before Sherlock, or after, as Sherlock would see it. He said, "Those aren't exciting. Wouldn't you like to hear about a case?"

"Another time," Sherlock said. "I need to know about you. Your genesis is equally as important as anything else."

More than thirty years before Sherlock, and John didn't like to talk about any of them as much as the cases. It wasn't fair that he could know Sherlock from day one, but Sherlock couldn't know John.

"You've heard most of it," John said.

"Pretend I haven't," Sherlock said. The protected files needed to be originally recorded at some point. They didn't come from nowhere, and proper analysis indicated that they were from John's past storytelling and Sherlock's future. He eventually had to hear them all once, as John was the key to inspecting those files directly, his voice.

With some coaxing, John told Sherlock a story about a time while he was in school. He and Harry had never been close, but they spent more time around one another back then at least. They’d shared mutual friends. It was one of Harry's friends that became John's first girlfriend, and Harry was annoyed with him initially, because she felt John had stolen away her friend's attention. Lucy was her name. John had stolen Lucy, and it wasn't until much later that John learned that Harry had simply been in love with her too, how Lucy loved Nutella sandwiches and preferred the music her father played on the family's old phonograph instead of anything more recent, much like everything John had loved about her and then stopped enjoying as much when they broke it off.

"She's the reason you reject hazelnut," Sherlock said. He'd pushed his face into John's shoulder during the story, and then even closer, almost right up against John's throat as if he might breathe in the words that way and get an exact sense of their shape to have forever.

John scoffed and didn't make Sherlock move. He said, "That was years ago."

"Not a denial," Sherlock said. He shifted up to see John's eyes. "I know you're softhearted, John. You can't hide it when I can see it up close."

"Who's hiding? I'm right here," John said, which was not an admission any more than it wasn't a denial, but true all the same.

John was right here for Sherlock and not Lucy or anyone else, and he wouldn't go anywhere, not even when things were so hard that it would be fair for John to stop loving too many words and thoughts associated with Sherlock. He knew because he'd lived through it, and Sherlock couldn’t change his past any more than John could change his own; he'd tried with a crime scene and remembered nothing differently than how he'd experienced the outcome. This would be the same, but that was definitely something to go on the Silver Linings list, both of them stuck in a timeline already told from beginning to end and back but irrevocably tied together.

Sherlock kissed John. He touched his face, tracing a long, tired line curving up John's cheek and kissed him the way John had done first.

John was impressively responsive, sighing for Sherlock and kissing him back in earnest, as if Sherlock had unearthed all of John's own locked materials. It was a shame and oversight that Sherlock hadn't thought to kiss John from day one, undeniably one of the best days of Sherlock's memory, but he would make up for it in the future.

John's mouth was all-consuming, full of so much new detail that Sherlock couldn't process it all thoroughly enough. He'd have to do much more research, staying at it for several minutes, and John let him, groaning only when he reached for Sherlock's bottoms and Sherlock held him at bay.

Sherlock learned everything of John's body in due time, often after crime scenes, when their adrenaline was highest. Sherlock learned that John could make him come with only his hand and kisses, could do it with his mouth on Sherlock's cock as easily as an expert. He taught Sherlock how to do the same for him, re-taught, and so the first time Sherlock had sex was much later in life than people living in the opposite direction but relatively early for him, trusting John to show him how and make him perfect again, whole and arranged in all the proper ways.

"Sherlock," John said in breathless desperation as Sherlock pushed inside him, the present sensation of being here so much more vivid than the echoes in Sherlock's pre-programmed memory.

"Say the word," Sherlock said. He knew John would understand.

John scrunched up his face, biting his lip. He said, "What?" in frustration, clenching around Sherlock. "Now?"

"I want to keep this."

He had to update his records, highlight these, and make sure they couldn't slip out. John arched under him, let Sherlock graze his teeth along his throat to taste and learn.

"Sherlock --"

"Say it," Sherlock said, and their voices matched here. They had the same trouble breathing, but John said the word, and Sherlock could access him entirely, filled in suggestions of things known and would never let them be deleted.

;;

"John, you're a genius," Sherlock said.

"That's a new one," John said.

Hardly. John's always been full of good ideas, and this was his latest, suggesting that Sherlock check his website for more clues about an upcoming case. The date had been marked on the calendar, and Sherlock was waiting for the mark over it to lift, but he had to be prepared. The newspapers were leaving something out, and John mentioned that the website would have it, if Sherlock hadn't let the thing lapse again.

"It isn't new," Sherlock said. "You think of everything. It's fact."

"If anything, it's been picked up thanks to living with you," John said from the kitchen. "Sherlock, you've left the tongues near the risotto."

"They're non-toxic and won't contaminate leftovers," Sherlock called to him. "Consumption is still perfectly safe."

John made a disgusted sound. "Who could eat this now?"

"Only a small portion for me, thanks. I've got to prepare myself for next week. The Highmore case."

"Last week."

"Yes, what I said, John. There's no need to repeat the obvious."

Sherlock looked through his lists and found the old web address for his site. He could commit this one to memory now, if it existed again. A few keystrokes sent him along, and then there it was, as if it had always been: The Science of Deduction. He went to John's blog address, and that was live as well, and Sherlock should have thought to keep an eye out for these sooner than now, because John blogged for a longer time than Sherlock kept his site, and now Sherlock wouldn't see the entries from before today, all of them not yet composed. The loss of information was regrettable.

"Now we're back to normal," John said, coming into the room where Sherlock read. "Back to being obvious and an idiot."

"The first but never the second," Sherlock said. "You've taught me everything, John. If you're an idiot, then so am I, and I know far too much about the world now."

"I'm a genius because you are."

"And vice versa. Also obvious, by the way," Sherlock said, scanning the summary of the case with his eyes, and -- "the fingerprints were fabricated? From a dead man?"

"Hm?" John said. "You mean the case? Yes."

"Brilliant," Sherlock said. He did love the brilliant ones. Serial killers were a complicated puzzle backwards and forwards.

He unraveled case after case, thanks to studying and John, and throughout each John would call Sherlock amazing. He was constantly impressed by things he'd known only yesterday, that he'd helped Sherlock remember, a never-ending congratulatory exchange between the two of them that Sherlock accepted if it meant that John gave him the easy smile and his affection and his proximity more than the opposites of each.

Some days were more difficult, like when one of them would forget that the other hadn't yet experienced an event or learned a phrase. Sherlock liked movies and music less and less, because they only ever came unmade. Sometimes he could play a modern piece on the violin and John would call it brilliant, unaware that Sherlock had practiced it six months ago.

"Well I haven't heard it yet, have I?" John would say if Sherlock explained. He wasn't ashamed of his timeline, the way he'd encouraged Sherlock never to apologize for his own, and though some days John's ignorance of the future and Sherlock's telling of it in these small ways made John impatient, there were also the days where he said it was always so fascinating that Sherlock knew the future with unshakable certainty.

"I could say the same about you," Sherlock said. "You know what comes next for me, and I have history as a warning. I should do the same.”

"No, thanks," John said. He was unwavering about that point. "I'd rather not know."

"Why not?" Sherlock asked, though he knew the answer, but it was marvelous fun to prove how steady John was at every point in his life.

John said, "I can't change it. What will happen will happen, and we have enough problems in the present."

"And survived many already in the past," Sherlock said, meaning John's and his own in separate ways.

"Right," John said. "So it's obvious that whatever happens, we're likely to get through it as a team, and I'm all right only knowing that."

"Obvious?"

John nodded, and Sherlock couldn't argue his logic.

;;

Knowing a trick or two about time didn't eradicate fear. Sherlock knew he and John couldn't die on a case, but there were still countless injuries, and knowing John hadn't bled out the day before didn't make it seem any less like a real possibility on the day he was attacked by a psychopath.

Sherlock had seen his healing in reverse, the wounds growing raw and more angry each day. They woke up one morning when John was whole, and Sherlock kissed the skin, touching the flesh and memorizing it without a scar, wholly new and unlike it had ever been. John laughed beneath Sherlock's fingers, protesting the investigation without real conviction, and before the end of the day, John was bleeding, losing consciousness, and Sherlock would undo time altogether if it failed him this time.

"You should sleep," John said in a white hospital bed later. He was bandaged and given painkillers. "I'm fine."

"Most hospital doctors are pathetically inadequate. Vigilance is important," Sherlock said.

John said, "I'm a doctor."

"And look at the state of you," Sherlock said.

John pressed his lips together in a pained smile. Sherlock didn't like that one as much, noting it before he filed the sight away. Near to dying, and John was smiling thanks to the drugs and disorientation, and maybe he _was_ an idiot, because a smarter man would know to be afraid.

"You're so cross," John murmured. "You weren't this cross even at Mycroft's memorial."

It was unlike John to be this blunt, but perhaps that was the morphine too. Sherlock didn't mind the words, only the situation. He wanted back the tactful and courteous John, all in one piece and of one dependable state of mind.

"Why would I be distracted by a man I don't know?" Sherlock said. "Keep up."

John hummed at this, a gravely, sleepy sound. He flexed his fingers, catching air, and Sherlock wouldn't dare touch him in case he might somehow make the problems worse. There was a long pause, and Sherlock didn't have the words to fill it, listening to John breathe.

"If I die yesterday," John started.

"Don't bother," Sherlock said. There was no use talking about his past, not now when he didn't trust it.

Ignoring him, John said, "But if I die yesterday, I'll still be alive tomorrow."

He was absolutely right. John Watson was bleeding out, loopy on painkillers, and yet still as sharp as ever. Sherlock said, his counterargument weak at best, "Theories are worthless without practical application. You can't know for sure what tomorrow looks like for me."

"I've lived it," John said, quietly soothing. "Go to sleep."

Sherlock did eventually, fitfully, and in the morning he woke up in 221B beside a John in perfect health. His worst affliction might have been exhaustion from their days on the case, but he was here, as he promised, living, and Sherlock's memories of his past were the same. He had worry lines across his brow, possibly a nightmare, and Sherlock learned the ridges of the dream with his fingers and then his lips, and John relaxed as he woke, groggy and brilliant.

Backwards and backwards Sherlock lived, through the interesting days and then boring ones, but sometimes the boring days were still good, and so it was all okay. They were always pointed in opposite directions, and so they came to appreciate the mornings best. John might know what was planned for later, and Sherlock might have the memories and facts about what they had done and would do tomorrow, but neither of them knew the specifics of how today would unfold until they experienced them, waking up on as even a keel as could be expected.

They always approached living from opposite angles. It couldn’t be helped.

When too many people died during a case or were hurt, John was regretful, and Sherlock would see them alive the following afternoon. Back to work, John would sometimes see a case with a woman in labor, and Sherlock disliked those, the births in reverse, probably the closest thing to death he could ever witness, and it was undignified and unsettling, and John laughed at him for that, once, without mocking, and said perhaps, but if Sherlock thought of it backwards, then it was a joy for some people, and Sherlock said they would agree to delete the matter entirely and be done.

John was solemn in the days leading back to Mycroft's memorial, pliant and seeking Sherlock's comfort. It was an incongruous experience, Sherlock more excited and curious about his brother as John grew regretful, and they spent the whole day before the memorial in bed, Sherlock's head pressed to John's heart and kissing his eyelids, so he could understand the sadness there, because it meant something. Sherlock wouldn't understand this sense of missing, maybe not until the last day he could know John, but he wanted to try to learn it from John, and then it was the next day, and the next, and another, and Mycroft was alive.

When they finally met, Mycroft proved himself an off-putting man, too capable of reading the details in Sherlock's brain after knowing him less than five minutes. Sherlock found it irritating.

"You were less annoying when you were dead," he said, and Mycroft looked unimpressed.

"Made of charm until the end," he said. Sherlock wanted him to go on about his business as soon as possible.

It was a relief when he finally took his leave, but he was still living, of course, and Sherlock found that despite not keeping too much record of Mycroft on his site and what John had written about him, he was a _presence_ in Sherlock's life. He always wanted something of Sherlock: help with a case or to keep in touch or to "be reasonable, Sherlock." No man could tolerate Mycroft all the time, determined in his life to fill Sherlock's own up with tedium and boredom and make up for the years he spent buried, killed serving his country. What benefit Sherlock gained from having two people know how he lived was overshadowed by the sheer number of insipid phone calls and texts Mycroft inflicted on him.

"He's your brother," John reasoned.

"Through no fault of mine." Sherlock hadn't picked Mycroft as a sibling and couldn't grasp why he had to bear the burden of him.

John said, "The luck of younger siblings."

"You don't know the half of it," Sherlock said.

It was an untruth. John had known Mycroft in person much longer by that time. John had suffered Mycroft, and he’d also suffered the constant source of disappointment that was his sister. John loved her, Sherlock knew. He was a man partial to difficult people, but Harry broke his heart. She didn't deserve enough of Sherlock's attention for real revulsion, but her tendency to shatter John's easy expression aggravated Sherlock. The day John told him to delete her, he did it enthusiastically and almost completely, without a second's hesitation.

Sherlock met her only the once. She was small-framed and fierce in way John was cautious to avoid, because the title of soldier did the job for him in most social situations, and he preferred that people relax and carry on as usual around him. Harry was a brighter personality, full of words and thoughts that demanded people pay attention, and Sherlock had more pressing subjects to work out and couldn't afford distraction. He had been grateful that it was only the one meeting, honestly, and Harry had been drunk. Sherlock could tell the moment he met her, but John picked up on it later, and the dispute between them erupted and kept up for half an hour before John pulled Sherlock away, steaming.

"I don't know why I try," John said.

"She's your sister," Sherlock offered, because John had wisely done so for him.

Shaking his head, John said, "Forget the whole thing. Forget her," and Sherlock did right away, everything except the basic idea -- John Watson had an older sibling named Harry. Nothing about Harry was ever to be kept by order of John.

"I've already done it," Sherlock said.

"What?" John asked, pausing. "Forgotten her? You've already gotten rid of her."

"Who?"

"You can't be serious," John said, eyebrows up, surprised and confounded at once, the tension in him lifting. He wiped a hand across Sherlock's arm, looking. No one had as many looks as John, and no one else's looking could undo Sherlock's train of thought with as much success. "But you are serious. How -- _how_ do you do that?"

Sherlock became aware of the cold then, chill nipping at his fingers and creeping up everywhere except where John's hand touched his wrist. He said, "John, you're making no sense again. Can we get a cab now?"

"This isn't the proper way to think of -- " John attempted to say but was stopped. The corner of John's mouth lifted, interrupting him. He turned his head and chuckled. "Nevermind. Come on. Find us a cabbie."

"The cold's scrambling your words," Sherlock said.

"That must be it."

"Unacceptable," Sherlock said. "Dress warmer next time. This can't happen during a case."

;;

Freezing London temperatures were never a problem while they worked. Mycroft wasn't a problem, and Harry wasn't a problem, and Sherlock thought they didn't need any of them, anyway, if they could track the thinking for one another. They required nothing else. Sherlock benefited from John and John from Sherlock -- and tea. John rather liked having a cuppa, so they needed those, too, but between the three, they solved hundreds of riddles. Some of them brought them near to dying but never over the edge, and at night Sherlock would watch John's bruises fade and marvel at the perfection of his skin.

"No one's as preoccupied with scars as you," John said.

"They're another timeline, like your calendars," Sherlock explained, eyes darting across John's torso. John was using a bold green marker these days, mark after mark still cleared away.

John said, "Tell me the date and time, then."

Snapping his gaze up to John's face and down again, Sherlock said, "You're mocking."

"Not a day in my life." Mirth played across John's face, lightheaded and patient. He shivered once as Sherlock circled a welt across his ribs. Scraped during a fight. John looked happy.

"You're giving everything away in your face right now," Sherlock said. "A blind man could tell everything you're thinking. Mrs. Hudson would call you indecent."

"I wouldn't mind," John said. "I feel indecent."

"If you mean the lack of clothing --"

"I feel _sentimental_."

"Disgusting," Sherlock said, and John's laughter took over right as Sherlock made his way up to John's shoulder and the light-colored scarring there, much neater than most people might expect. He waited for John to calm, exhaling softly and blinking up at Sherlock before closing his eyes. "This one moves the slowest."

"One of the oldest," John said unnecessarily. Sherlock knew. If he cared enough to hate, this scar would be the only thing. He disliked seeing John's bullet scar creep towards a fresh wound, counting down.

"You won't remember me when it happens."

"No, I didn't know you yet. There's a difference."

Sherlock said, "If you could remember that you know me, you might not get it. You're daft otherwise."

"Without you, you mean," John said. "But I might not have met you without it. Remember that too."

"Why do you continue to insert the obvious into everything?" Sherlock said, moving off of John and staring up at the ceiling.

"You forget things," John said. He didn't sound upset about it. "Me an idiot and you losing your mind. An unbeatable combination."

"Inspired," Sherlock said tonelessly.

After an immeasurable space, John said, "I'd choose to keep the scar, I think. If given the choice."

When Sherlock turned his head to the side, John wasn't looking in his direction. His lips were pursed in thought, and Sherlock could sense the words running in his skull, full and serious. John did most things deliberately. He wasn't a copy of Sherlock, had more noble motivations and ways of approaching the world, but he did think, and what he decided on he meant, and Sherlock would spend all the time he had learning each thought until he could quote John in entirety, until all the mysteries were solved and Sherlock's own mind might calm. He'd learn everything until there was nothing left, until it was just John, the first lesson and the last.

He disliked the scar, because it intimidated him, and nothing intimidated Sherlock anymore. But sentiment was useless, and even without the scar, one day John would forget Sherlock. There were other signs. No use in fixating on the most harmless of them, Sherlock reasoned, and he craned himself inward and kissed John's shoulder, waiting with him for sleep to come.

;;

Mycroft said, "You're frightened that he's forgetting you, but you're thinking about it wrong. He'll un-know you."

Mycroft was a bit of a sadist. Sherlock enjoyed that in other people, criminals specifically, because they made for the most challenging crimes, but in Mycroft it was wasted and bothersome. Sherlock imagined him evaporating. Or, better, he imagined Mycroft boxed up in one of Mrs. Hudson's trunks and shipped around the world for several years.

"You're welcome to misdirect your discomfort towards me, but that's a wasteful use of time, Sherlock."

"Is this your approximation of what others call _compassion_?" Sherlock pinched his brow together and then smoothed it. The expression was too much a product of his exposure to John.

"My schedule's too full for commiseration," Mycroft says. "I'm getting to the facts, since you prefer those."

"Arrive at them anytime."

Mycroft twisted his umbrella around, uncrossing his legs. He said, "For you, forgetting is voluntary."

"And the outcome for that and un-knowing are identical."

"It's not on purpose," Mycroft said. "He can't help it. He would try if he could."

Sherlock was loathe to admit that Mycroft was as right as he was intolerable. Sherlock knew it and still felt affronted when John couldn't remember things he'd known much better than Sherlock in the past. He'd made Sherlock a genius and was slowly leaving him alone with it, tracing the inception of each criminal plan, breaking down the parts of 221B as lists disappeared and blog entries were unwritten.

Sherlock didn't think much of personal photographs and mementos. Nothing could be had forever, except his mental hard drive for anything critical, and Sherlock's tendency to dismiss certain rules and due dates frustrated John increasingly until Sherlock suggested the password.

"In your brain?" John asked, mouth curled.

"Don't look that way, John. Blank stares are already a dreadful reminder of how hopeless other people are," Sherlock said.

"Since most people aren't maintaining a home with Merlin living backwards, I think I'm doing alright at going with it so far," John said. "You know your brain isn't really a laptop, Sherlock, don't you?"

"A boring tangent," Sherlock said. "I would explain my theories about the physics of it, if they mattered. Since they don't, let me assure you that it works. Any computer can have password protected files. If there are items I want to make sure are kept, I can."

"Like what? How?"

"Anything I choose," Sherlock said. "We need a word."

“You call everything I use now too simple to guess,” John said, not without some dismay.

“But it would need to be something you could remember,” Sherlock said.

“Wouldn’t you already know what it is?” John asked in a flash of excellent observation. It was no wonder John Watson would eventually be brilliant. “If you’re coming from the future, then you’ve used this word before. Tell me. It’s easier.”

"Perhaps it's a piece of music," Sherlock said instead.

John said, "Guessing games? Sherlock, I'm not --" but stopped as Sherlock raises his brow and tried again. "Alright. It couldn't be something I liked best. Too obvious."

"Yes."

"But too random and obscure wouldn't lend itself to remembering," John said. "A reference to an event? Something based in fact."

"A public one?"

"No," John said after consideration. "Maybe it should be, but I wouldn't choose that way, and the password is still for me."

"Good."

"So not something expressly to do with me but familiar," John said. "And it's your brain, so -- it's about you?"

"Try music."

"I don't need help," John said. "If I'm doing this, then let me. Anyway, you don't care for music. You only play the violin, and even then you hate anything modern."

"Not hate, simply dismiss," Sherlock said.

"The point is that you mostly play things unidentifiable," John said. "I have no idea about pieces you actually like. You'll play things I recognize when I complain. Mendelssohn, for instance. His 'Lieder' was first."

"That'll do," Sherlock said, springing up from his chair. "Say the word again and focus on it."

"Mendelssohn?"

"The piece."

"Can't that still be guessed at?" John said. "The first piece you ever played for me? You're not much for mawkishness. And a _Romantic_ composer."

"Lieder is sufficient," Sherlock said.

John laughed, a little disbelieving. He said, "Things have changed between us, but Sherlock, you're not romantic --"

"But you are, and here _we_ are," Sherlock said, swooping in to touch John's face and hold his attention. He held his eyes. "John. Say the word. It's a fact, and it's your key."

"How many other passwords are there?" John asked. Sherlock jerked his head back, not expecting the inquiry.

He said, "None."

"Oh," John said, his cheeks smashed between Sherlock's hands. "I see."

Exactly. Sherlock relaxed his grip and waited for the sound.

;;

John never accessed Sherlock that way again, and so some files weren't as secure. He paid an even more fine-tuned attention to John Watson to preserve the lessons left loose, to John who started to limp sometimes and couldn't always shake away the tremor in his left hand now.

"You can't stare it out of him," Mycroft said, taking the usual joy in knowing too much about Sherlock's mind.

But he wasn't entirely right either. Sherlock didn't want anything out of John, simply to open up the documents he had and filter them all back in, so that John would know, would stop carelessly forgetting everything Sherlock had taught him and that he had taught Sherlock in turn. John maintained his blog but forgot the calendars, did all the hoovering but got annoyed when Sherlock reminded him that he'd deleted how to accomplish it himself many years before.

He was no less loyal and compassionate but increasingly intolerant of the details of Sherlock. It felt like a belated revenge, that John would have somewhat less patience now, and Sherlock Holmes could be infuriating to him without years of mutual learning. Sherlock had all the information, and John had so little, dwindling down to the thirty-odd years he’d rather not retell, and each time they kissed, Sherlock made the absurd and inevitable attempt to think his past into John, tasting the easy smile and hoping John would remember.

But they traveled back and back until the morning John understood nothing of what Sherlock said about tomorrow, said, "How could you possibly know anything of the future?" and Sherlock checked the date.

It had come upon them too quickly, and Sherlock huffed at John's slow thinking. He said, "Obviously I'm different, John. If you'd observe the signs."

Explaining himself to John turned out to be tedious and clumsy. How to condense a lifetime of knowing into bullet points? How to talk around the particulars of the first day without giving it away that one day Sherlock would fail to understand John in just the same way? Today John was slow, and one day Sherlock Holmes would stop amazing everyone. But they would be brilliant in the middle, and they would have one another to credit for it. Sherlock would teach John to be a genius, and John would teach Sherlock after that, a fascinating round, and in the middle, no one would be able to touch them, not even on days when it would seem like they might die at the hands of criminals.

It took some doing, but Sherlock got John to believe. He knew he'd succeeded when John eventually said, "I don't think you'll ever stop surprising me."

Sherlock supposed that, no, perhaps not, but it was only fair. John did his own share of surprising. He was the kind of man who would take Sherlock's hand in that instant and not express pity but instead examine Sherlock's fingernails and his arms. He would examine his face, as if trying to pick him apart.

"How long have we known each other?" he asked, squinting. "When we met, is that how you knew so much about me?"

"The deductions are probably true, but there is a history between us."

"You can't say for sure?"

Sherlock said, "I have an idea, but I haven't been there yet."

"Of course. I forgot," John said. "Astounding."

"Just the facts, actually," Sherlock, and John laughed, nodding.

;;

More astonishing even than that exchange was that Sherlock learned that it wasn't after knowing that John first kissed him, it was before. Full of twists until the conclusion was Doctor John Watson, who was compelled to show affection for Sherlock without knowing all of his mysteries. And when he found out, he had stayed, as he would eventually promise never to go, and Sherlock committed the kiss to memory as much as possible.

It was after a case, and Sherlock was the one to nearly die this time. John checked Sherlock's extremities and chest, tracing the source of the blood.

"It's not all mine," Sherlock said, but John continued his search until he was satisfied. "It's only one brush with death. Don't invest too much time. This one's hardly special."

"Because you're an idiot," John said. "Just like I said. How can anyone as calculated as you be this careless, Sherlock? We should have waited for Lestrade."

"That would be too logical for an idiot," Sherlock said.

"This isn't the time for smugness."

But wasn't it? Because if John was an idiot -- and he was at this point, to follow after the kind of madman who'd chase armed subjects -- if John was an idiot, then surely Sherlock was too, but that was fine. John was still a doctor, a very good military one who didn't flinch at the sight of gore and checked Sherlock more thoroughly than any hospital. He had cold fingers and his pinched brows, determined, worried, and caring, and no one got all of those looks at once except for Sherlock, just the way he preferred, leaving Sherlock absolutely exhilarated, and so he kissed John to reward him.

So that was really the way it went, that Sherlock kissed John first and not the reverse. It was the last but also John's first, and Sherlock was too pleased that John kissed him back.

"Damn, and now you've lost it," John said breathlessly. "Did they hit you on the head?"

"Mm, yes. Most attempt to if they're the least bit competent," Sherlock said, but that wasn't the reason for his latest display, of course. John didn't yet know, but he would in his future.

In Sherlock's, he knew less. He wasn't inclined to kiss Sherlock any more, though he was still silly enough to follow after him, even when it meant Moriarty would strap him to a bomb. These were the last of the cases, Sherlock knew, reading back through John's blog and frowning at the way John lost his ability for the most thorough retellings. Sherlock still memorized their details, because they wouldn't be there after much longer, less and less of John Watson's thinking, of John Watson thinking of Sherlock.

John had lost his keen ability to insert himself into Sherlock's space wherever he was needed, and so Sherlock left him behind more, not thinking, because John had always been better about these things. He'd always known where to leave space for Sherlock, and Sherlock tried to get better about remembering to leave space for John, who would have to catch up and remember not to limp and learn that there would be places Sherlock needed him before Sherlock himself knew.

During the last days, Mycroft called Sherlock and said, "He passed, as expected. He's got a better moral constitution than anyone before him and refused the bribe. This is your doctor."

"Undoubtedly," Sherlock said. A test was useless to him, but he didn't mind the confirmation that John was careful about Sherlock even knowing him only a short time. John Watson was always just the same at the core, just John, capable of compassion and a soldier's calm when shooting in the name of justice in equal parts.

The detective reports had never named John as the shooter, but Sherlock had suspected as much and still found himself impressed by the reality. John was serious about sparing lives but practical about killing criminals, and yet capable of laughing a few minutes after, giving Sherlock the easy smile in celebration of a job well done and good company.

He surprised Sherlock until the very end, their beginning, moving with effort and suspicious of everything normal in London but gracious enough to look to Sherlock, a stranger, and offer him something for nothing, this time a phone instead of tea.

"Use mine," John said.

Sherlock relearned one of the earliest lessons there at the end. Perhaps he should not have been startled by the reassurance, but he couldn't deny that he was. John was always a surprise and a mystery, unlike everyone else, and he was a constant teacher.

"Oh," Sherlock said and learned again that John Watson was a man who gave, would give to Sherlock, and would always. "Thank you."


End file.
